Re: 'rhotic plosives' (was: laterals)

>Even if, for the say of argument at this point, I accept a complete
>closure is made in rapid succession in a trill (whether made with the apex
>of the tongue or with the uvular [the latter is heard in certain regions
>of north Wales]), I have never been aware of any plosion of the release.
Are you saying that the air stops to flow while the
trill is being produced so that upon each closure
no outward movement of air is produced?

Then, no, you're wrong. I've being pronouncing trills
all my life (I'm a native Spanish speaker) and I can
assure you that while pronouncing a trill there's a
steady outward movement of air only interrupted by
the brief closures, after each of which a plosive
release is produced by necessity because more air
is coming from behind to push it out.


>I'm less familiar with flaps (books say it occurs in RP pronunciation of
>_very_ - but that's a good half century out of date, i think), but when i
>have heard them I've not been aware of any noticeable plosion.
Listen to a Hindi retroflex flap.


>Quite - the top of the tongue _vibrates_ (that's why it's often called an
>_apical_ trill); similarly, the uvular vibrates when a uvular trill is
>made. There's no way a uvular trill is a rapid succession of uvular voiced
>plosives.
Try pronouncing "da-da-da-da-da..." quickly, very
quickly, yet more and more and more quickly. You'll
end up pronouncing a trill "rrrrrrra", because a
vibratory movement is simply a raising/lowering
where the distance between the high and the low
point is small. And when the sequence of plosives
is very quick you literally don't have time to
raise and lower your tongue but only a small
distance, while during a normal plosive that
distance is much longer because you aren't urged
to raise your tongue again just after a millisecond
of having lowered it.

But as for what defines a plosive, which is not the
distance covered by the tongue during its upward and
downward movement but the fact that the airstream is
effectively blocked and then released, this occurs
the same both in normal plosives as in tap and trill
plosives. If no effective block is produced during
a trill, you get sounds such as the "rz" and "rzh"
fricative trills you can hear in certain varieties
of Spanish, in Czech or in Mandarin.


>> A tap would
>> make sense to call a very brief stop,
A plosive trill is just quick succession of plosive
taps. Or, that's to say, a quick succession of brief
plosives.


>OK (as I said, I'm less familiar with flaps) - brief tho it may be, is the
>duration long enough for the block air stream to produce any significant
>plosion?
If there is an effective closure, the plosion
is produced _by necessity_. But in a tap/flap
that plosion is very quick, that's precisely
what distinguishes it from a non-rhotic plosive.


>> Approximant-flap?  What's that mean?  How can something be both a flap
>> and an approximant?
>
>Quite.  This is absolutely confusing! Above Javier is maintaining that a
>flap is a plosive, i.e. the airstream is blocked and then released with
>plosion.
No, I said that taps/flaps are _usually_ plosive.
But I also pointed out that fricative and approximant
taps/flaps aren't uncommon; they happen as allophones
of /4/ in Spanish, for example.


>Even if we discount the 'plosive' description of a flap, nevertheless, we
>can say that a flap is caused a rapid contact between two organs of
>articulation. How can you have a rapid contact (i.e. rapid closure) and
>the thing still be a flap?
Just don't define a flap in terms of degree of closure
but in terms of rhoticity, because what distinguishes
a flap from non-rhotic plosives/fricatives/approximants
is the quickness with which it is pronounced, not the
degree of closure. In my other message I explained
that degree of closure and rhoticity are two different
articulatory dimensions that do not exclude each other.
What really defines a tap/flap is it's being a
single-pulse rhotic consonant (as opposed to
multiple-pulse rhotic consonants and to non-rhotic
consonants) and not its being plosive, fricative or
approximant. Thus, a tap/flap is a single rapid
movement where one organ comes close to another,
regardless of whether they go all the way and touch
each other or merely come close enough to produce
friction or just close enough to produce a
frictionless continuant.

Cheers,
Javier

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